So What's The True Successor To The Gameboy/ds?

[migo]

Long battery life compared to the competition was always a strong point of Nintendo's. SNK matched it with the NGP(C), but the GBA SP especially had a kickass run time.

The 3DS now has 3-5 hours of life, the iPod touch 3-6 hours and I'd be hugely surprised if the PSP2 can exceed that. Any other obvious major players also won't have more, given they're smartphones.

I'm sure Nintendo will continue selling the DSi, but once that hits end of life (possibly quite soon, as anyone who wants one probably has one by now), the market will be ripe for another system with 14-18 hours of play time on a single charge.

Any systems out there that look even close, that a hardware maker could tweak and improve for even better life?

 

[DaMummy]

i still dont understand why 3ds uses a li-ion battery, when li-po is widely available

 

[migo]

Possibly because it's cheap? That's why Nintendo does everything.

 

[dnlgreenwood]

Possibly because it's cheap? That's why Nintendo does everything.

I was thinking the same thing. The better battery would be worth the extra cost, imho. I hope they change it in the rerelease or something.


The 3DS must be a power-hungry beast compared to Nintendo's earlier handhelds. Wait, did you say 3-5? Gosh, my Game Gear does better than that.

 

[migo]

Yeah. If you turn 3D off it can hit 8 hours, but if you're turning 3D off, what's the point of a 3DS?

Definitely if they're selling it at $250 they should put in the best battery possible, as battery life is more important than price.

 

[dnlgreenwood]

Yeah. If you turn 3D off it can hit 8 hours, but if you're turning 3D off, what's the point of a 3DS?

Definitely if they're selling it at $250 they should put in the best battery possible, as battery life is more important than price.

Probably true. If you look back to the run of the original Gameboy and its competitors, you'd see that the Gameboy, with its superior power efficiency FAR outsold the Game Gear, which had less than a quarter of its battery life and used more batteries, despite the Gameboy's inferior visuals.

I'm starting to get a bit disappointed with my PSP. I have to charge it more often than I had to charge my DS, and the battery runs out sooner.

I don't think the power efficiency will affect the sales of the 3DS too much; Nintendo has built up a huge reputation for their handhelds, and have many, many trusting customers of all ages. Just ask anyone who grew up when the Gameboy was out, and they would be much more likely to remember it than the Lynx, TurboExpress, or GameGear. Hm... I wonder if the NGP will have a better battery life...

 

[Popcorn Dave]

They're probably holding the good battery back because they want to release an "upgraded" version after a couple of years like they always do. The "upgraded" version will have a proprietary headphone jack and no backwards compatibility, of course.

 

[Dunny]

Long battery life compared to the competition was always a strong point of Nintendo's. SNK matched it with the NGP(C), but the GBA SP especially had a kickass run time.

The 3DS now has 3-5 hours of life, the iPod touch 3-6 hours and I'd be hugely surprised if the PSP2 can exceed that. Any other obvious major players also won't have more, given they're smartphones.

I'm sure Nintendo will continue selling the DSi, but once that hits end of life (possibly quite soon, as anyone who wants one probably has one by now), the market will be ripe for another system with 14-18 hours of play time on a single charge.

Any systems out there that look even close, that a hardware maker could tweak and improve for even better life?

Dude, the Pandora gets battery life such as that which you are pining for. It's the ultimate open gaming handheld.

D.

 

[WizardStan]

They're probably holding the good battery back because they want to release an "upgraded" version after a couple of years like they always do. The "upgraded" version will have a proprietary headphone jack and no backwards compatibility, of course.

I believe you are thinking of Apple. Nintendo has always been pretty good about using as much standard equipment as they could get away with and providing backwards compatibility where it made sense.

 

[Phawx]

Actually Apple and Nintendo have similar marketing strategies. I am very thankful for the Pandora though, and even though I've preordered the 3DS, I have to admit I am really looking forward to the NGP. I'm actually really excited for the Xperia Play as well. Just hope it comes to Sprint. Just buy an extended battery for that bish and be good to go.

Have to admit that I am still waiting for the perfect hybrid. The Xperia Play is the closest thing to my dream device right now. Really glad Sony actually chose a correct route and made the Playstation suite hardware agnostic. If the rumors are true that Sony is heavily encouraging broad porting with NGP, this could be an awesome future.

 

[dnlgreenwood]

They're probably holding the good battery back because they want to release an "upgraded" version after a couple of years like they always do. The "upgraded" version will have a proprietary headphone jack and no backwards compatibility, of course.

I don't think they'll mess up on the headphone jack like they did with the Gameboy Advance SP. Anyway, I don't think they'd cut out DS support in their second upgrade. After all, they kept GBA support in the DS Lite. Maybe they will when the DS becomes completely obsolete in four or five years.

 

[monstercameron]

i know the display is a big drain but how is a dual core arm11 do that much damage...i also wondered why sony left MIPS for arm on the psp.even though im not a big can of windows i would like to see a windows based gaming handheld.

 

[TransGaming]

i know the display is a big drain but how is a dual core arm11 do that much damage...i also wondered why sony left MIPS for arm on the psp.even though im not a big can of windows i would like to see a windows based gaming handheld.

I hate windows, I moved to ubuntu because it runs much smoother and never suffers slow down after so long. which is why the pandora is brilliant. my friend (username: ashdjones) let me have a go on his and I was really impressed though to speak of a positive aspect of windows, there is a wide variety of emulators available for it.